The April “Influencers from Around the World” post comes to us from Seoul, South Korea, thanks to my good friend Hoh Kim. Hoh and I earned our Cialdini Method Certified Trainer® designations together in 2008. Hoh is an incredibly intelligent individual and an expert when it comes to ethical influence. I encourage you to check out his website, The Lab h, and his blog, Cool Communications. Hoh is also on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter so reach out to connect with him.Brian Ahearn, CMCT® Chief Influence Officer influencePEOPLE Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.”Tiny Habits” and Principle of ConsistencyMany of you may have heard about a recent bestseller, The small Big, by Steve Martin, Noah Goldstein, and Robert Cialdini. I recently co-translated this book into Korean language and it is now in Korean bookstores too. Big differences influencing others can come about from small changes. The “small big” principle also applies when I want to create a new habit. Recently, I participated in a program called “Tiny Habits for Work” by Liz Guthridge. Liz uses “tiny habit” methods created by Dr. B.J. Fogg. The program was interesting and quite useful. Let me introduce what I learned from the program about “tiny habits” as it may be quite useful for you too.When a new year starts, we normally think about creating a new habit such as to stop smoking, eat less, exercise more, read more, etc. Normally, in the first week of January, our motivation to try new things is quite high, but then doesn’t last long. Probably, by the end of January, we return to “normal state.” Motivation is not reliable, and you should not try things based solely on your motivation. So what we have to try are “tiny habits.” According to the handout of the program, tiny habit can be defined as follows: 1) you do at least once a day; 2) that takes you less than 30 seconds; 3) that requires little effort.Then, there is a recipe for tiny habits. You need to combine “anchor” behavior (which you already established and do every day) and new “tiny habits.” Liz recommended I come up with three tiny habits, and here they are:– AFTER my feet touch the floor, I will state my one big intention for the day.– AFTER I hang up the phone, I will take three deep breaths.– AFTER I lay down at night, I will think of one thing about work for which I’m grateful. Do you get the idea? You link new “tiny habits” to behaviors you naturally do every day. Some of the other examples given were, “After I get in the car, I will think of one thing I can do differently and better at work today” and “After I walk through the office door, I will smile at the first person I see.”Among the three tiny habits, the second tiny habit didn’t work well. I kept forgetting it. So, Liz shared an explanation with me. As I would take too many calls, it might be hard to do every time. That being the case, we looked to see if I could change to something I do once a day such as “AFTER I return to office from a lunch time…”While participating in this program, I thought about the principle of consistency. When influencing others, it often is useful to leverage small commitment. The tiny habit method is also in line with the “foot-in-the-door” technique. You start small (tiny habit), and if you can do the tiny habit continuously then you can move to a bigger habit. We are already into April so perhaps it is good time to reflect our New Year’s resolutions. If there’s something that didn’t work out as planned, perhaps you might be interested in trying the tiny habit. By the way, among the six principles of influence, the principle of consistency has an important difference from other five principles. It is about self-persuasion.Hoh KimFounder, Head Coach & Lead Facilitator, THE LAB hAddress: THE LAB h, 15F. Kyobo Bldg. Jongno 1, Jongno, Seoul 110-714, KoreaE-mail: [email protected]: 82-2-2010-8828 Home: www.THELA